If you follow me on Instagram (or if you’re familiar with cyclical living), then you may have heard me mention an inner season or two.

“I’m in my inner autumn and I’m feeling exhausted,” I have said on many occasion.

What I’m referring to is the seasons of my menstrual cycle. As this knowledge becomes more widely understood, I believe we can use this terminology to quickly identify where our friends are in their cycles, and perhaps how they may be feeling, reacting or showing up during this time.

Our inner winter is referring to menstruation, or the time when we are turning inwards, hibernating, resting and bleeding. It’s typically a quieter season, when we’re feeling low energy and more grounded.

Similar to how winter transitions to spring, we experience our inner spring during the week of pre-ovulation. It’s a tender time for play, when we emerge back into the bright world and blossom. There’s a fragility and a childlike excitement that comes with this season or phase.

Our inner summer is ovulation, and who’s surprised by that?! It’s a hot, sexy, sensual week in the menstrual cycle for many women and menstruators. For some, an egg has dropped and our hormones are roaring. We are feeling our most powerful, our most confident and our most extroverted.

Finally, just as the days shorten outside in fall, our inner autumn is a return to that inward energy. During the premenstruum week, (if the egg wasn’t fertilized) our body is experiencing death and decay similar to the changing leaves in nature. There’s a feeling of harvest, culmination, and winterizing our lives before we hibernate once more.

Now, imagine a world where these words and attached meanings were common knowledge.

Imagine how you could show up for your friends and meet them where they were, and vice versa. Imagine how your family could support you because they understood your needs based on your inner season. Imagine how powerful that would be in every facet of your life!

That’s the magic of cyclical living.

x Lauren